The Madras High Court on Wednesday set aside a single-judge’s direction prohibiting temples in Tamil Nadu from acquiring elephants [Arulmigu Sri Subramania Swami Thirukoil vs Sheik Mohammed]..A Bench of Chief Justice Sushrut Arvind Dharmadhikari and Justice G Arul Murugan held that the direction travelled beyond the case concerning a female elephant, and affected temples that were neither parties to the proceedings nor were given an opportunity to be heard.The Court, however, affirmed all directions issued for the custody of the elephant, Lalitha, her medical treatment, retirement and welfare.The Division Bench said that a court exercising writ jurisdiction must ordinarily confine the relief to the pleadings and the parties before it.“This is not a technicality. It is the very foundation of a fair hearing. However well-intentioned a direction may be, it cannot be sustained if it is passed against persons who were strangers to the proceeding and who had no opportunity to place their case before the court,” the judgment said..The appeals arose from a February 2023 order passed by a single-judge after Lalitha’s health deteriorated. She had suffered multiple falls between December 2022 and February 2023.After personally inspecting her, the single-judge directed that Lalitha be handed over to forest authorities and the District Level Captive Elephant Welfare Committee for treatment. The judge also declared that she had reached the retirement age of 60 and directed that her mahout and his assistant continue to care for her..However, the order went further and directed an inspection of every temple-owned and privately held elephant in Tamil Nadu. It also called upon the government to consider shifting all captive elephants to government rehabilitation camps and directed the Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Department to instruct temples not to acquire elephants in future.Appeals were then filed by the Tamil Nadu government and the Arulmigu Sri Subramania Swami Temple at Tiruchendur which owned Lalitha..The Division Bench held that the wider directions issued by the single-judge could not be sustained since the original writ petition concerned only the rejection of an application to transfer Lalitha’s ownership.The Court also found that a blanket prohibition on temples acquiring elephants ran contrary to the Tamil Nadu Captive Elephants (Management and Maintenance) Rules, 2011.Rule 3 expressly permits a temple to receive a donated elephant after obtaining prior permission from the Chief Wildlife Warden. Such permission can be granted only after a State-level committee examines the elephant’s health, age and pedigree as well as the temple’s infrastructure and financial capacity..The Bench said the Rules constituted a comprehensive regulatory framework covering the housing, feeding, work, transportation, retirement and inspection of captive elephants.“A court cannot, in the course of deciding an individual case, issue a direction that has the practical effect of overriding such Rule, without the Rules itself being under challenge,” the Court observed.It also disagreed with the single-judge’s interpretation of a September 2021 order passed by another Division Bench. That order prohibited fresh capture of wild elephants but protected elephants already in captivity, the Court explained. It did not bar temples from accepting the donation of an already captive elephant..The Bench nevertheless upheld all protections granted to Lalitha. These included her retirement, medical care, continued assistance from her mahout and his assistant, access for an animal-welfare volunteer and protection from noise pollution..Senior Advocate AK Sriram, instructed by advocate Muthugeethayan, represented the Tiruchendur temple.Special Government Pleader R Bharanidharan appeared for the State government. Special Government Pleader Mohammed Fayaz Ali represented the forest authorities..[Read Judgment]
